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`UNITED STATES PATENT AND TRADEMARK OFFICE
`___________
`
`BEFORE THE PATENT TRIAL AND APPEAL BOARD
`___________
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`TAIWAN SEMICONDUCTOR MANUFACTURING COMPANY,
`LTD.
`and GLOBALFOUNDRIES U.S. INC.,
`Petitioners,
`
`v.
`
`GODO KAISHA IP BRIDGE 1,
`Patent Owner.
`___________
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`Case IPR2016-01249 and Case IPR2016-01264
`(Patent 6,538,324 B1)
`___________
`
`Record of Oral Hearing
`Held: August 7, 2017
`___________
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`
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`Before JUSTIN T. ARBES, MICHAEL J. FITZPATRICK, and
`JENNIFER MEYER CHAGNON, Administrative Patent Judges.
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`Case IPR2016-01249 (Patent 6,538,324 B1)
`Case IPR2016-01264 (Patent 6,538,324 B1)
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`APPEARANCES:
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`ON BEHALF OF THE PETITIONER:
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`Stephen E. Kabakoff, Esquire
`Finnegan Henderson Farabow, Garrett & Dunner
`901 New York Avenue, Northwest
`Washington, DC 20001
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`ON BEHALF OF PATENT OWNER:
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` Michael J. Fink, Esquire,
` Greenblum & Bernstein
` 1950 Roland Clarke Place
` Reston, Virginia 20191
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`The above-entitled matter came on for hearing on
`Monday, August 7, 2017, commencing at 1:01 p.m., at the U.S.
`Patent and Trademark Office, 600 Dulany Street, Alexandria, Virginia.
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`Case IPR2016-01249 (Patent 6,538,324 B1)
`Case IPR2016-01264 (Patent 6,538,324 B1)
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`P R O C E E D I N G S
` JUDGE FITZPATRICK: We are here and I am
` joined by Judges Arbes and Judge Chagnon. This is
` for two IPRs: IPR2016-01249 and IPR2016-01264. Can
` we get an introduction from each side for any
` attorney that will be presenting, and please do so
` at the podium. Thank you.
` MR. KABAKOFF: Stephen Kabakoff for
` petitioners.
` MR. FINK: Michael Fink for patent owner,
` and with me is Arnold Turk.
` JUDGE FITZPATRICK: We have 60 minutes per
` side. There are -- there's the petition itself and
` the grounds on which trial was instituted for both
` cases. There's a motion to exclude on each side in
` each case. I think they are the same. And there's
` a motion to amend.
` With respect to issues for which you
` bear the burden, for those you can reserve
` rebuttal time. We are going to start with
` petitioner and patent owner will follow. And what
` I meant by that is so, for example, patent owner
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` can reserve some rebuttal time even though it's
` second. That rebuttal time will only be for
` patent owner's motion to amend and patent owner's
` motion to exclude. Any questions before we begin?
` Okay Mr. Kabakoff, please proceed.
` MR. KABAKOFF: Thank you, Your Honor. I
` also should note that with me are lead counsel,
` Robert Yoches and Joshua Goldberg, and my colleague
` Shawn Chang. I'd like to reserve 30 minutes
` rebuttal time, please.
` The '324 patent claims a two layer
` copper diffusion barrier. It was well known in
` the art as a semiconductor device application.
` The patent contributes nothing new to the art.
` If we could turn to slide 3, please. As
` shown in figure 2 of the '324 patent, slide 3,
` which is also labeled prior art in the patent, a
` single layer crystalline diffusion barrier was
` already well known. And the crystalline
` diffusion barrier is shaded dark blue and it's
` above a semiconductor substrate shaded light blue.
` And the purpose of the diffusion barrier
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` is to prevent copper from diffusing through the
` barrier into the underlying substrate, which may
` contain active devices such as transistors and
` other components that would be damaged or degraded
` if copper got into them.
` The patent teaches the crystalline
` single layer film had the benefit of adhesing well
` to a copper wiring film above it. But it had the
` disadvantage that they had these grain boundaries
` that would go through the thickness of the film
` that acted as fast paths and allowed copper to
` diffuse quickly into the underlying substrate,
` which is a bad thing.
` If we could turn to slide 4. The patent
` also in figure 3, which is labeled prior art,
` admits that single layer amorphous films were known.
` And here the amorphous film is colored red. You
` can see it has no clear paths that go straight
` to the film. It operates as a very effective
` barrier for copper diffusion.
` The problem that the amorphous film has
` is it does not adhere well to copper. So it has
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` the opposite situation as the crystalline film.
` So the invention of the '324 patent merely claims
` a structure that realized to put the crystalline
` film that adheres well to copper on the top where
` it will interface with the copper the amorphous
` film on the bottom, where it could block diffusion
` of copper into the underlying substrate.
` The same structure, the same two-layer
` structure was already well known in the prior art.
` I'd like to turn to slide 7, please.
` And this is a figure 2 from Ding, and it shows on
` the X axis of different diffusion barrier
` structures. And on the Y axis is the copper peak
` intensity of copper that could be grown on these
` different structures.
` And really what I want to focus on is
` the bottom X axis. You can see on the left-hand
` side there's a single layer tantalum barrier with
` copper on top. There's a single layer of tantalum
` nitride layer with copper on top. And then
` there's a number of different structures that are
` two layer structures with the -- what's shown in
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` red, tantalum nitride on the bottom, the bottom
` film, the tantalum film on top, and then copper
` above that. So it's a two-layer structure of
` tantalum nitride on the bottom, tantalum on the
` top.
` If we could turn to slide 8. Ding
` teaches in column 7, line 66 to column 8, line 4
` that the top film is a tantalum <002> crystalline
` orientation. So the top film is tantalum crystal.
` And the purpose of it is to enable easy wetting of
` the tantalum surface by copper and growing high
` <111> crystal orientation copper, which are
` desirable.
` And our expert, Dr. Banerjee, explained
` that easy wetting of the tantalum surface by the
` copper means providing good adhesion to copper.
` And you can find that, for instance, at Exhibit
` 1003, which is his declaration at paragraph 72 and
` paragraphs 75 and 48, among other places.
` So Ding at column 3, line 39 and 40
` discloses that the bottom tantalum nitride layer
` is sufficiently amorphous to prevent diffusion of
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` copper into the underlying silicon. Just like the
` prior art amorphous layer I discussed earlier with
` reference to figure 3 of the '324 patent.
` So if we could turn to slide 5, please.
` Zhang is another prior art reference. It also
` shows the same two-layer structure. Here we have
` a top film that's shaded in blue and labeled 32,
` and a bottom diffusion barrier film that's shown
` in red and labeled 22 in Zhang.
` And again, the purpose of this two-layer
` structure is that you have copper above it and you
` have a semiconductor substrate which is
` highlighted in light blue below. And the barrier
` prevents the copper wires -- the copper from the
` copper wires from diffusing into the underlying
` substrate.
` If we could turn to slide 6, please.
` Zhang -- this is Zhang's abstract --
` teaches that the bottom portion (22) provides a
` good barrier. That's the bottom film that's shown
` in red. And the top portion (32) provides good
` adhesion to copper. Again, the same purposes with
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` reference to the prior art in the patent and in
` Ding.
` Zhang also discloses the nitrogen
` percentage -- the nitrogen atomic percentage is
` lower in the top film (32) than the bottom film
` (22). And that's also shown in the abstract,
` among other places.
` If we can turn to slide 9, please. And
` you can see they both are directed to a two-layer
` copper diffusion barrier structure. In the top
` film, which is called the first film in the claim,
` is a crystalline metal containing nitrogen therein.
` The bottom film in the claims is a bottom amorphous
` film composed of metal nitride. And the claims
` require that the top film contains a smaller
` nitrogen content than the bottom film. All these
` properties we just discussed in Zhang and Ding.
` Can we jump to slide 73, please. The '324
` patent explains in the context of its invention at
` column 6, line 32 to 36, that the crystalline metal
` film containing nitrogen therein, that's the top
` film, is to ensure high adhesion between the film
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` and copper. Again, the same purpose we just talked
` about in the prior art. The bottom film in the
` invention is an amorphous metal film containing
` nitrogen to effectively prevent copper diffusion.
` Again, the same purpose as Ding and Zhang and prior
` art. And that's from '324 patent, column 6, lines
` 42 to 47.
` If we could jump to slide 12, please. And
` here just to show you visually, you can see figure
` 4D from the '324 patent on the left and figure 8
` from Zhang on the right. And it's the same
` structure. It's a two layer, top film in blue,
` bottom film in red, copper wires above it, and it's
` preventing copper from getting into the underlying
` substrate in light blue.
` I'd like to jump now to slide 13, please.
` As Your Honors know, the challenged claims are
` independent claims 1 and 5, and also dependent
` claims 2, 3, 6, 7, and 9. The 1249 proceeding is Ding
` in view of Zhang, and the 1264 proceeding is Zhang
` in view of Ding, and, alternatively, further in view
` of Sun.
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` If we could turn to slide 14, please.
` There's only a few disputed issues, and they are all
` based only on claim construction in the
` independent claims. Dependent claims 2, 3, 6, and 7 are
` not separately disputed by patent owner. While
` dependent claim 9 is briefly addressed at the very
` end of their patent owner response in a paragraph or
` two, its arguments are the same as for claim 1. So
` really all the challenged claims stand or fall based
` on the same arguments.
` The first issue on slide 14 says the
` construction of the top film, which is the first
` film being composed of crystalline metal containing
` nitrogen therein under the BRI standard.
` And petitioner submits that the actual
` construction of this term should not make a
` difference. The claims will be obvious regardless
` of whether the Board applies the broadest reasonable
` interpretation which is used in the institution
` decisions or the more narrow construction that the
` patent owner is proposing in its patent owner
` response. So this should not be determinative, but
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` it is disputed in the sense that we disagree that
` the terms should be narrowed. And I'll talk about
` that in a minute.
` With regard to the Zhang-in-view-of-Ding
` ground, the question here is that Zhang teaches the
` entire diffusion barrier structure for the claim,
` for the independent claims, but does not expressly
` teach that the top film is crystalline and the
` bottom film is amorphous. So the question to
` determine obviousness in this case is whether it
` would have been obvious to modify the top and bottom
` films in Zhang to make them crystalline and amorphous in
` view of Ding, where Ding unquestionably teaches a
` crystalline top film and amorphous bottom film.
` Instead of attacking whether Ding remedies
` Zhang's lack of disclosure, express disclosure of
` crystalline and amorphous films, patent owner
` instead contends that Zhang and Ding only disclose
` pure tantalum films in their top layer. So
` according to patent owner, no combination of these
` two references can yield a top film containing
` nitrogen therein.
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` We disagree. In fact, what Zhang is
` missing is the crystalline and amorphous nature of
` the films, not whether the top film contains
` nitrogen therein. And Zhang repeatedly discloses
` the top film 32 in Zhang contains nitrogen, not only
` within the film, but throughout the entire film,
` bottom all the way to the top surface.
` The third point is for Ding in view of
` Zhang -- and this is in the 1249 context -- is
` really the same argument that patent owner is
` making. They're saying -- the question is can
` Ding's top film contain nitrogen therein. And their
` argument is because Ding teaches a tantalum top
` film, in their view Zhang is also a pure tantalum
` top film. You cannot combine them to result in a
` top film in Ding that would contain nitrogen. And
` we disagree with that as well.
` If we could turn to slide 15, please.
` This is the construction of the claimed first film,
` and the Board in the institution decision found that
` no express construction is necessary. And
` petitioner agrees that the plain meaning of these
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` terms are apparent, and a person of ordinary skill
` would understand what they mean.
` Patent owner, on the other hand, proposes
` that this term means the first film consisting
` essentially of a mixture of single crystalline or
` polycrystalline metal with nitrogen throughout.
` According to patent owner, the claimed term requires
` a top film essentially that's crystalline metal with
` nitrogen throughout the entire film from the top to
` the bottom of the film. That's their position.
` And really what this comes down to is
` they're really taking this broad term "therein" and
` interpreting it as "throughout," requiring this
` limitation, not only of whether the film can contain
` nitrogen, but a distribution of that nitrogen in the
` film. And we disagree that that should be read into
` the claim based on (unintelligible).
` JUDGE ARBES: Counsel, do you agree with
` the remainder of the interpretation other than the
` word "throughout"?
` MR. KABAKOFF: Your Honor, we don't
` believe it's dispositive. Really the dispute is
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` going to be on the term "throughout." We have
` disagreed with patent owner's construction of
` "composed of," where they read it as "consisting
` essentially of."
` JUDGE ARBES: Can you explain why is that
` not correct, that aspect of it?
` MR. KABAKOFF: So composed of is not
` consisting of. And that's really -- consisting
` essentially of, they're reading it in a very closed
` way. They view the whole top film being required
` crystalline and containing nitrogen throughout the
` entire film. And in the patent the top film, the
` preferred embodiment has regions that are devoid of
` nitrogen. There's beta tantalum portions. Then
` there's other portions that contain what they call
` TaN 0.1. So the top film has areas with nitrogen
` and areas without nitrogen.
` So in our view the claims should not be
` read in a way that would require nitrogen
` everywhere. It allows other materials, such as
` the beta tantalum influence, which are the
` preferred embodiment. But regardless, that's not
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` going to be determinative in this case because the
` prior art would meet all their limitations.
` JUDGE ARBES: As I understand it, the
` district court adopted at least the "consisting
` essentially of" portion of that; is that correct?
` MR. KABAKOFF: I believe that's correct.
` JUDGE ARBES: But you disagree with that.
` MR. KABAKOFF: We believe that it should
` allow for other materials as well. But again, it
` shouldn't make a difference for the prior art in
` this proceeding.
` If we could turn to slide 16.
` JUDGE FITZPATRICK: Mr. Kabakoff, I have a
` question. I could see after reading all these
` briefs, I know exactly why there is the fighting
` about "throughout," and I know what the significance
` is, of course, of the transitional phrase
` "consisting essentially of."
` Is there anything in the record in your
` view by patent owner to show that in Ding or Zhang
` or in the combination that would result from them,
` that you would have additional materials that
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` would affect -- you know, that would be outside
` the scope of "consisting essentially of."
` MR. KABAKOFF: No, Your Honor. I'm not
` aware of anything that patent owner's argued in the
` record to that extent. The reason they do it is --
` JUDGE FITZPATRICK: Excuse me. I didn't
` ask that as clean as I should have. Do you discern
` any significance based on the record consisting
` essentially of using that phrase as opposed to
` "composed of."
` MR. KABAKOFF: So the reason that it's
` become -- the patent owner has proposed this, and
` they are viewing Zhang's top film as containing both
` amorphous and crystalline portions. And the problem
` is Zhang doesn't say anything about amorphous and
` crystalline. So they are using this term "composed
` of" to create an argument that's not supported by
` Zhang. And I will get to that soon. I think that's
` right why it's significant because they are using
` this to say if Zhang's top film has both crystalline
` and amorphous regions, then it's not composed of or
` consisting essentially of crystalline containing
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` nitrogen.
` The problem is Zhang doesn't say
` anything about crystalline and amorphous. That
` argument it based entirely on -- based in reading
` in or creating an assumption about where
` crystalline amorphous regions would be in Zhang,
` which are never taught in Zhang. That's what's
` missing from Zhang is the crystalline amorphous.
` That's why it's relevant, for that argument
` they're raising.
` JUDGE FITZPATRICK: Thank you.
` MR. KABAKOFF: On slide 16, just briefly.
` The dictionary definition of "therein" just means in
` that place, time and thing. Therein just means in
` there. In a film that has nitrogen in it somewhere
` would satisfy first film. There's no redefinition
` or disclaimer. The word throughout is never used to
` describe nitrogen concentration in the top film in
` of the '324 patent. So there's no reason in the
` intrinsic record to change the plain meaning of
` therein to throughout.
` If we could jump to slide 19, please.
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` So as I mentioned, now I'd like to talk about the
` Zhang-in-view-of-Ding ground. This is for the
` 1264 petition. And as we noted, Zhang does not
` expressly disclose the amorphous and crystalline
` natures of the films. It's our position that a
` person of ordinary skill would see Ding where it
` is a crystalline top film and an amorphous bottom
` film. They would have understood to make Zhang's
` top film crystalline and the bottom film
` amorphous.
` Let me go to slide 20, please. So even
` though Zhang has not disclosed whether the bottom
` film 22 is amorphous, at Exhibit 1036 at page 78,
` line 6 to 20, Patent owner's expert, Dr. Harris,
` testifies that a person skilled in the art would
` have understood, especially based on the
` description of Zhang that the goal of the bottom
` film was an amorphous tantalum nitride structure
` and further testified they would have understood
` that that was an amorphous structure tantalum
` nitride.
` So to the extent that Zhang does not
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` expressly disclose the bottom film 22 as
` amorphous, patent owner's expert seems to agree
` that at least it would have been implied or a
` person of ordinary skill could figure that out.
` If we can go to the next slide 21. Even
` though Zhang does not disclose whether its top
` film 32 is crystalline at Exhibit 1036, page 79,
` line 9 to page 80, line 3, patent owner's expert
` testifies they would have recognized -- a person
` of ordinary skill would have recognized that the
` upper film, the upper surface of film 32 in Zhang
` was crystalline. And at page 74, lines 1 and 2,
` their expert testified the purpose of the top film
` 32 in Zhang is to improve the adhesion of copper
` was deposited.
` Again, this is suggesting that, while
` it's not expressly taught, it would be something
` that would have been understood based on the fact
` that you want to improve adhesion to copper.
` If we could jump to slide 61. This is
` column 3, lines 44 to 47, from Zhang. And
` in forming the film 32, which is the top film, the
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` nitrogen gas is terminated, and importantly here,
` the substrate becomes biased at approximately
` negative 75 to negative 80 volts.
` So in Zhang when you're forming the top
` film, you apply the substrate bias. And we've
` argued in our papers that that would correspond to
` the middle dotted line in figure 4.
` And on slide 62 is testimony again from
` patent owner's expert -- this is from Exhibit
` 1036, page 226, lines 16 to 21 -- where he was
` asked, Do you agree that applying a substrate bias
` for only the top film 32 in Zhang was indeed known
` to improve the opportunity to form more
` crystalline material. And he says yes.
` So again, applying a substrate bias in
` Zhang is, check, another data point, of why this
` would be obvious that you would want to make the
` top film in Zhang crystalline. In fact, Dr.
` Banerjee, our expert, in his declaration, Exhibit
` 1003 at paragraph 71, similarly states that a
` substrate bias promotes crystalline. And that's
` what Zhang is doing. It's applying a substrate
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` bias to the top film when it's forming the top
` film.
` So if we could go to slide 22, please.
` It's undisputed by the parties that both Zhang and
` Ding use similar sputter-deposition techniques.
` This is a quote directly from the patent owner's
` response where the heading is Ding and Zhang
` Disclose Similar Sputter-Deposition Techniques.
` And if we could turn to the next slide
` 23. And Ding makes clear that its top film is
` crystalline. It's a tantalum <002> crystalline
` orientation. And it makes clear that the bottom
` film is sufficiently amorphous to prevent the
` diffusion of copper. So you have the two things that
` are really strongly suggested in Zhang, that the
` top film would be crystalline and the bottom film
` would be amorphous, we are expressly taught now in
` Ding any similar two-layer structure with the top
` and bottom film serving the same purposes as in
` Zhang.
` So to an extent, Zhang's top film was
` designed to improve adhesion to copper. Ding
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` teaches how using a crystalline top film
` accomplishes the same goal. And to the extent
` Zhang’s bottom film was designed to provide a good
` copper diffusion barrier, Ding explains how an
` amorphous bottom film accomplishes that purpose.
` If we could turn to slide 24, please.
` And here patent owner's expert again -- this is
` Exhibit 1036, page 81, line 13, to 82, line 7.
` Patent owner's expert agrees that where Zhang does
` not disclose a crystalline top film, they would
` have turned to Ding for that teaching. And he
` testified a person of skill in the art would
` understand that that top surface in Zhang would be
` improved if it were crystalline in nature. Zhang
` does not teach crystalline. However, Ding does
` teach that the top surface or that the top
` material would have that <002> crystalline
` orientation.
` So Ding remedies the deficiency in Zhang
` with strong motivation to make the modification of
` crystalline and amorphous that's missing expressly
` from Zhang based on what Ding teaches.
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` I'd like to turn to slide 25. And you can
` see on the left-hand side is figure 4 from the Zhang
` patent and on the right side is the patent owner's
` annotated version of the same figure.
` I want to point out some significant
` modifications that have been made in the
` annotations. First, you'll notice that in the
` patent owner's annotations they labeled a region
` amorphous tantalum nitride in a very similar font as
` the figure, and put an arrow and colored it blue.
` And they also label an area called pure tantalum and
` put an arrow and colored that red.
` So the words amorphous tantalum nitride
` and pure tantalum do not appear anywhere in Zhang.
` This was added by patent owner. And in fact, Zhang
` doesn't teach anything about crystalline/amorphous.
` That's what's missing from Zhang. And they decided
` that there it is.
` According to page 42 of patent owner's
` response for the 1264 proceeding, they argue that to
` the extent that any portion of film 32 would be
` crystalline, the crystalline portion would be pure
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` tantalum without nitrogen shown in red. This is
` nowhere in Zhang. This is all the idea of patent
` owner and its expert. But it's also factually
` incorrect.
` So not only is there no mention of
` amorphous and crystalline, the top red portion they
` identify as pure tantalum is just factually wrong,
` because Zhang teaches nitrogen all the way through
` its top film. It teaches it throughout the entire
` top film, which is exactly how it would satisfy
` their claimed construction.
` So if we could turn to slide 26. To start
` with, the top film in Zhang is called a
` tantalum-rich tantalum nitride film 32. It's a
` nitride film. It contains nitrogen. Zhang is
` disclosing a film containing nitrogen therein. So
` at least the film itself implies that there's
` nitrogen somewhere in the film. Then we can turn --
` this is, by the way, from Zhang, column 3, lines 14
` to 16.
` If we could turn to slide 27. This is
` Zhang, column 3, line 54 to 55. The tantalum-rich
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` tantalum nitride has a range of approximately zero
` to 30 atomic percent nitrogen. So here it
` specifically says the top film has approximately
` zero, not zero, but approximately zero up to
` 30 percent.
` And this is consistent with figure 4,
` where we see a very large concentration of nitrogen
` where the bottom of the top film falls off and gets
` very small near the top surface. The question is
` approximately zero, exactly zero.
` If we could turn to slide 28.
` JUDGE FITZPATRICK: So Mr. Kabakoff, this
` description we just looked at, slide 27. The context
` of this is -- and let's also look at slide 25, the
` figure 4, the unedited figure 4. That description
` is referring to the fact that there's less nitrogen
` in the sputter chamber as time goes on. As the
` layer builds up height. Let’s call it height. And so
` that it's approximately 30, maybe in the beginning,
` and then it goes to approximately zero near the end
` of that process.
` Am I reading that right?
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` MR. KABAKOFF: I agree, yes.
` JUDGE FITZPATRICK: Okay. Thank you.
` MR. KABAKOFF: And Zhang goes through
` great pains not to say that the top surface has
` zero. An example of that is in slide 28. This is
` column 3, lines 54 to 57, where the upper surface of
` that top film, tantalum-rich tantalum nitride film
` is substantially pure tantalum, it's not entirely
` pure. It contains essentially no nitrogen atoms,
` none. They are being very careful with the wording
` not to say that there's no nitrogen at the surface.
` To make it even crystal clear, no pun
` intended, in slide 29, Zhang, in column 3, lines
` 57 to 62 says at the upper surface -- and that's
` talking about the upper surface of the top film --
` it can contain -- the nitrogen may be less than
` 5 percent if copper adhesion particularly
` problematic, less than 5 percent, 4 percent,
` 3 percent, 2 percent. These are all disclosed in
` Zhang. Zhang expressly says you can have up to
` 5 percent nitrogen, not zero, at the upper surface
` of the copper.
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